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Some thoughts on Pokemon go that crossed my mind today :

1- They can’t/shouldn’t let this fly solo for too long. The clones will all fail unless one of them is shockingly good, which is so unlikely that it would be mind blowing if anything but more shovelware comes out. Nintendo should continue getting their other IPs involved in similar ways. I listen to Sports radio and this is a current water-cooler topic, but we are in somewhat of an echo-chamber in regards to our gamer community (mostly 25-40 year olds who ALSO grew up with video games). NOBODY on these shows knew anything about Pokemon really, and of the people that tried it, nobody was very interested. They weren’t hostile to it, but because they were too old when Pokemon first came on the scene, it didn’t ‘click’ for them. An AR ‘Nintendo‘ Universe could be the thing to do that, have minigames, a light version of Smash Bros, a light version of Kart racing, etc, with collectible Nintendo characters. 8-Bit Mario, Wii Fit girl, DK, etc.

2- Fitting in with that idea, they should do cross-play stuff with their other products such as 3DS, WiiU, and NX. As in : find/collect stuff in the mobile/AR world, and be able to import some select things as add-ons for MK/Smash/whatever, and vice versa. Buy Zelda for WiiU or NX, and get a special character in the mobile Nintendo Universe.

3- As I’ve been saying for YEEEEEAAAAAAAARS, it’s WAAAAAY past time that Nintendo expanded Pokemon beyond their handheld devices. Yes, we’ve had some underwhelming games like the Stadium and Flash games, but a full-fledged Pokemon console RPG (with a multiplayer element) could be a legitimate system seller for a LOT of fans. And now would be a better time than ever before, because it could cross-play with Pokemon Go. I’ve NEVER heard a good reason against it, it just boggles the mind.

4- Yes, this ONE game is currently majorly hyped, but let’s not kid ourselves. Phone/Tablet gaming STILL suffers from massive loads of crapware/shovelware, currently beyond anything the early 1980s could imagine. For every ‘Pokemon Go’, there are 25,000 mediocre to garbage-tier games clogging the stores. Worse yet, the way people expect to pay little/nothing for the games along with the rule of thumb being to make the game quickly impossible/painful to play without paying for crap adds up to APP fatigue on these marketplaces. People go through a honeymoon phase where they have fun with tons of little games/etc, then they get the idea and the novelty wears off, and only a few major hits break out of any note. It’s extra agonizing when they use megaboobs or Arnold to sell you on these games, but you basically are forced to pay for every little thing to stand a chance, and you’ll still get utterly demolished by a trust fund kid who spent $3,000 this month on in-game fees. Imagine if that were the case for console games. “Hey look, COD #63, Awesome!. Fire the game up, shoot at people, no effect, get killed. Please wait 5 minutes to spawn. Want to spawn now? $2.99 please. Respawn, get killed again. Please wait 20 minutes to spawn. Respawn, and it dawns on you that your stock weapon has no effect, but if you pay $19.99, you can unlock an actually useful weapon for the next 5 rounds, or buy it permanently for $99.99. Buy the weapon, notice that you still lose, because you didn’t pay $19.99 for upgraded armor, $9.99 for increased movement speed, or $24.99 for the HUD which lets you see around corners. Sound like hyperbole? Then you have never played one of those idiotic games that I’m talking about, but they are ALL OVER the app stores. And because there are enough ‘whales’ out there to spend stupid amounts of money on them, your average player has literally less than zero chance of competing. This is the kind of business model that I want to fail completely so that it doesn’t infect console/PC gaming like some kind of damned disease.

5- I hope Pokemon Go and Nintendo continue to succeed with this and open the doors further for dramatic quality improvements to mobile gaming. We can’t compare to this to the 80s arcade era or any other great era of gaming YET due to this being the only non-horrible mobile game that I can really think of that is of any legitimate note. Yes, some games are tolerable for a few minutes, but it’s virtually all brainless garbage out there.

6- Returning to the train of thought on crossing over the Pokemon Go aspect to Nintendo’s home consoles and 3DS, if they can expand this into VR, then they could give homebound kids and hospitalized/handicapped players a chance to join in the fun. Google Earth kind of world details mean you could actually explore the world without the use of your legs or perhaps endangering yourself if you suffer from poor health. The social aspect could be awesome for that community.

7- Be prepared for massive backlash. We live in an era where it’s ‘cool’ to hate on things, it’s probably already started, but it will build to tidal levels in no time. Screw those people. I don’t really care about Pokemon per se, but I’m happy to see something happen that brings people together and inspires.

Erik Ackerlund – This picture is to be found on Nintendo of Japan’s website. This version will be produced by Hudsonsoft, It is interesting to see here that Nintendo decided to let someone else have a go at following up their well received Tetris DS. This new variant looks to be the first Tetris taking advantage of a 3D system since the long ago Virtual Boy Tetris.

From the screen shots, it appears that the pieces will roll at us ala Zaxxon style or Star Wars credits if you will. In one shot it appears that they are adding some of the unconventional rules to Tetris here we have seen before, with the multiple next piece preview and piece hold. Also it looks like they have some additional game where you will navigate various pieces through a maze.

It will be interesting to see if this version has the speed and playability to be worthy beyond the 3d gimmick.